Last few weeks been noticing an increasing amount of what I'll call "tuning" problems with my XL4/Elite. I spent some time testing this afternoon and it really is quite a mess. In a nutshell, the TiVo seems to be unable to tune a channel at times and leaves me with a black screen the scrub bar showing 30 minutes and "paused." Unlike the typical problems i've had in the past with my TWC tuning adapter, there is no "unable to tune" error message or authorization message.

Here is an example:

Was watching CBS, hit guide and tuned to HGTV, hit "last" and then CBS wouldn't tune (black screen scrub bar at 30 minutes paused.) Hit channel up/down and CBS would not re-tune. Hit guide, then selected CBS and it tuned. Was able to replicate this type of behavior with 3 other channels, some taking more effort than others to get back. If i toggle the "Live TV" button to switch tuners while on a "blacked out" channel the other 3 seem to be fine.

That's just one example, but I'm noticing a channel work perfectly fine and then stop working in a similar manner all too often in the last few weeks. Have missed recordings as a result, and while I'm normally the first to blame the tuning adapter it's happening with channels that I don't believe are even switched (and the behavior is different than problems I've seen previously with my adapter or cable card.)

Unplugging the box and re-plugging also will bring a channel back online. There isn't much rhyme or reason to what channels stop working. But it is happening, a lot.

Just happened again tonight ... all 4 tuners were set to record but one tuner refused to tune to SyFy which had a scheduled recording. Screen black, scrub bar paused and no error message related to channel authorization. Multiple attempts to tune to SyFy were hopeless. Unplug/replug TiVo and SyFy was back on.

Frustrated .... I always knew TiVo would be "quirky" due to the myriad of problems related to tuning adapters and cable cards but it's degenerated in the last few weeks to unusable for me

Can't offer much advice either other than in my experience 4 tuner units are much more prone to tuning problems compared to 2 tuner ones. I've had several issues lately as well with my Elite not being able to tune certain channels until a reboot, but meanwhile my 2 tuner Premiere has not had any trouble at all. Only advice I can give is just regularly reboot the XL4 to avoid the problem.

I am having the exact same issues as the OP. It happens on both my 2 tuner Premiere and my 4 tuner Elite. It happens a lot more on the 4 tuner than the 2. I have Time Warner cable.

I contacted Tivo a while ago about this and I was told it is a "known" issue that they are working on.

Thanks, it at least is starting to feel like it's not just me. I talked to TiVo support on the phone last night and unfortunately it wasn't very helpful. They suggested my signal may be too strong and to try to throttle it with a splitter (based on the SNR being 37db.) I thought that was a very odd suggestion and I kinda felt the rep was grasping at straws by that point since the diagnostics showed no problems.

This morning the offending channels were FX and Comedy Central. FX refuses to re-tune now after two reboots but CC is now fine. Channels that were a problem last night appear OK this morning.

Separately we're noticing some stutter on certain recordings (like a 1-2 second "skip".) Probably unrelated but at this point who knows

If it is a TWC issue, it may never be fixed :-/ Unfortunately my eyes have started to wander to DTV because I'm just tired of fighting to watch TV.

zerophin: Just a note on terminology. The Premiere XL and Premiere XL4 are completely different DVRs, it sounds like you actually have a XL4 not an XL, if so recommend you use XL4 when you post.

Edited ... I purchased right as the Elite was being re-branded but as I understood it the only change was the name. The Box itself is still an Elite, but figured XL was the more common name for it (my bad not realizing there were multiple XL models and not just the 4-tuner!)

I too have this exact same problem on my brand new Tivo Premiere 4 with Time Warner. However after many hours of diagnostics I can tell you that tuner #3 (they are labeled 0 through 3) never has any tuning issues while tuner #0 and #1 have major issues tuning at times that even re-tuning does not help unless I force it to use tuner #3.

My (2) Tivo Premieres are nearly perfect, and I'm VERY reasonable to tuning failures as I give a lot of forgiveness to the SDV channels as they require the tuning adapter. I am hoping it's just a matter of time before my new Tivo Premiere 4 will behave the same as Tuner #3 across all tuners as I still have my 30 days return window.

Update: I went ahead and repeated the guided setup it appeared to help for just about 3 hours and then blank screen at random channels SDV or not, I did notice under Tuning Adapter Diagnostics that Tivo Premiere indicates channel is analog when not tuning correctly. Hope this information helps others.